This 19-year-old teen makes $50 million from NFT artwork sales

• In April 2022, Victor Langlois sold $20 million worth of digital artwork NFTs in 24 hours on the NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway.
• Langlois faced a challenging teenage time and choose to explore digital artwork to express his feelings.

Last year in 2021, the non-fungible tokens (NFT) market was in a massive boom. Victor Langlois, a 19-year-old transgender artist, capitalized on this trend by selling more than $50 million in NFT artworks in just over a year’s time.

The 19-year-old artist gained fame by selling $2.16 million worth of NFT and physical artwork last year at popular auction house Christie’s. The collection, titled “Hello, i’m Victor (FEWOCiOUS) and This Is My Life,” explains his childhood and life story.

Blockchain-based Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have grown very popular among digital artists. NFTs help artists by bringing transparency to the ownership of their digital art. Last year, popular digital artist Beeple sold a single NFT worth a staggering $69 million.

After tasting the first success with his NFT art, Langlois continued to achieve more by selling more digital artwork. Earlier in April 2022, Langlois, also popular as FEWOCiOUS, sold a whopping $20 million of digital artwork in just 24 hours. This was also the third-largest sale on the NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway. Speaking to the Fortune publication, Langlois said:

It’s been hard for me to process, to be honest. The dream isn’t to relax and do nothing, the dream is to draw.

He further said that he will invest all the funds from the proceeds of the NFT sales to grow his art business and keep creating.

Langlois’ journey to digital artwork

The NFT collection “Hello, i’m Victor (FEWOCiOUS) and This Is My Life” represents the teen’s life from the age of 14-18. In an interview with Esquire last year, Langlois said that he was afraid to come as a transgender to his religious family members.

After being removed at 14 by his household, he started living with his grandparents in Las Vegas. But even that didn’t help him enough. “I thought I would be safe, but they were just as mean,” he said.

Also, speaking to Christie’s Langlois said that his grandmother struggled to understand his pursuit of art. Langlois said:

I think she struggled so much that she just wanted security. To see me wanting to pursue art, she was like: ‘What? Be a lawyer.’ Which I understand. But it hurt when she would say, ‘Your art is ugly and that’s why you can’t do it.’

But nothing could stop Langlois from exploring his interest in art. After being not allowed to paint, Langlois started doing digital art on his iPad. This is where things took a turn for him in a completely different manner. After his first big NFT sale, Christie’s digital art specialist Noah Davis said:

He went all out on this project and bared his beautiful soul for the world. I hope his success shines bright for other young creative people who might be struggling with similar issues of identity and acceptance.

Related: Crypto and NFTs will thrive based on multiple use cases: Ripple exec Brad Garlinghouse